Petition to help Eastbourne independent coffee shop now up

Bella’s Café in the Eastbourne railway terminus is under threat from Costa Coffee which intends to move into the old ticket office right next door to them.

I checked this out with the Eastbourne Borough Council and the application is definitely there with documents and shop plans.

Never mind that Costa has a café just across the road from the station and two more in Eastbourne, they now want to take further territory in the station itself.

Bella’s has survived rail strikes, austerity and the Covid- lockdown, all the time trying to retain staff and their loyal clientele happy.

After all that, Costa arrives and may destroy all they have built up.

After various enquiries I found that the Eastbourne Borough Council planning office has no influence in this development.

Their ability to object to and to stop developments has been weakened by a government policy that has taken power away from them in order to expedite projects that are supposedly ‘in the community’s interest’.

Even if the council did object, it is very likely that Costa or the landlord, Network Rail, would mount a legal challenge and win on the basis that this was purely a business proposition. Raw competition would be the name of the game and Bella’s would face potential elimination.

The only support Bella’s can expect to get is from us and from local organisations that are willing to pitch in with us.

To conclude, Bella’s is under threat by a large corporation and we must take a stand and support them.

From a planning perspective we suffer from a government policy that removed some of our democratic power to shape our own communities.

This paves the way for large corporations to dominate and, in this case, potentially destroy a hard working local business.

We, as a community, must draw the line between developments that will add value to Eastbourne and those that are definitely harmful.

That’s why convincing Costa not to move into The Terminus is so important.

You can sign a petition in support of Bella’s at click here to sign